by Jason Ayres
She took out her shovel and began to dig again, driven on furiously by her desire to see once more the man she loved. When the handle snapped, she continued with her bare hands. She could get no deeper than a few feet, though. Below that, the snow had impacted into a solid block of ice.
Tears of hopelessness and despair welled up in her eyes. She checked her watch to see that he should be arriving about now.
“Peter!” she cried, over and over again. “Can you hear me?”
There was no reply. It was hopeless. There was no way she was going to be able to get him out. She only hoped that he was safe in there – what if the snow had filled the whole tunnel, or what if there was no air in there?
She sobbed, broken-hearted, her spirit crushed, full of the realisation that she may never see him again, and even if she did, it would not be for another eleven years.
She felt numb with the cold, and if it had not been for the little girl waiting alone for her mummy back at the cottage, she may well have just given up there and then, lay down and gone to sleep for good. There was nothing more she could do.
Reluctantly she turned around and began the long, lonely trek back home. Jess would be sleeping now and she wanted to be back before she awoke. She had no idea how she was going to break the news to her daughter that her father wasn’t coming home.
It took her an hour and a half to get back, and she almost lost her way twice, with no landmarks to guide her. Finally she saw the cottage in the distance and pressed on for home. Jess was waiting for her and watching from the window.
Getting back in was not easy, but she eventually managed to climb back up to the bedroom window, where Jess helped her through. Then there were many tears as she explained what had happened. All they could do now was dust themselves down and start again.
The weeks passed, and the days began to grow longer. Snowed in, they remained isolated in the cottage, with no sign of another living soul outside. It snowed most days, and even when it wasn’t snowing, the sky was grey and dark.
Then, in February, things began to change. The snow stopped falling and the sun began to break through. It was still too weak to do much to melt the snow around the cottage, but elsewhere in the country, things began to recover.
The US Air Force had arrived in the UK to help, bringing in thousands more ground troops. Between them, they managed to clear the city streets and allow some free movement again.
Martial law was lifted in London. There was no fear of any further looting. Most people’s spirits had been well and truly broken. Stealing expensive goods was the last thing on their minds, and they didn’t stray far from the soup kitchens.
The runways at the various airports and airbases were cleared, allowing more military aircraft to take to the skies, at last allowing aid to get through to the smaller towns and villages. One morning in mid-February, Hannah and Jess were awoken by the sound of a helicopter passing overhead. As they watched, it dropped food parcels down into the town.
With their own supplies running low, Hannah decided to make the journey into town to see if she could find them. Travel through the snow was much easier now, but by the time she got there, she was unable to find anything. Unknown to her, it had already been collected by Dan’s followers.
The flights became more frequent, soon occurring on a daily basis. Hannah and Jess had taken to going outside to try and attract the attention of the pilots. Waving furiously at the skies, they were rewarded when a large parcel, full of food, landed at their feet.
Despite the lack of new snowfall and temperatures creeping back above freezing, what lay on the ground stubbornly persisted. The combined effects of the sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere and the snow cover itself continued to reflect the sun’s weak winter rays back into space.
But then, in the second week of March, the change that everyone had been waiting for arrived. The cold air mass that had been stubbornly sitting over the British Isles for nearly five months was finally pushed out of the way by warmer, wetter Atlantic air moving up from the south-west.
When Hannah and Jess woke up on Monday 11th March it was to a sound they had not heard for a long time. There was heavy rain falling outside. To begin with, it froze as it hit the snowy ground, but gradually as the day went on, the top layer of snow began to turn slushy.
The change in weather had come just in time. Despite using it extremely frugally over the past month, the oil in the tank had finally run out. They still had a small amount of firewood which they burned for warmth for the next two or three days but soon that was all gone, too.
It had rained relentlessly over those three days, but now it had stopped. A huge amount of snow had melted, and now they had a new problem. Water was pouring into the kitchen under the front door. Hannah stuffed towels, clothing, everything she could find under the door to try and stem the flow, but it was clear that they were not going to be able to stay in the cottage much longer.
Fortunately, she awoke the following morning to a very pleasant surprise. As her eyes opened she was aware of a red flashing light next to her bedside table. She focused her eyes and saw the red, luminous letters “12.00” flashing back at her.
Excitedly, she woke her daughter who was curled up next to her. “Jess,” she said. “I think the electricity is back on. We can go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three – 14th March 2030 (10.00am)
Slowly, the country was coming back under government control. Getting the electricity back on had been the first priority. By the middle of March, supplies had been restored to most towns and cities in Southern England.
Further north, conditions had been far worse, and the work progressed more slowly, but by the end of the month, the power was back on as far north as Glasgow.
Roads were becoming passable again, and the military began to roll into towns where they had previously been unable to go. The population was still almost totally reliant on food parcels, but as freight became possible again, more supplies began to make it into the cities.
When Dan saw that the street lights had come back on, he knew it was time to get out. He called a meeting of the community and told them it was time to disband and go home.
Most of the members of the community had mixed feelings about Dan. Yes, he had helped them to survive, but the dictatorial way he had ruled them hadn’t gone down well with most of them. They had kept quiet about it in the most part because they had no alternative. They all remembered what had happened to Jack.
Other rumours had begun to circulate about Dan, too. Aimee was by no means the only girl he’d coerced into giving him sexual favours.
Dan was no fool. He could see that with the melting snow, and the electricity back on, his hold over these people had gone. This was why he had called the meeting. He wanted to pre-empt any action they might take.
He started by thanking them for being part of the community, but explained that it was now time to go home. They were free to take whatever remained from the stores. Confident that his generous approach had buttered them up, he called the meeting to a close and got ready to leave.
He wanted to get out of the base as soon as possible. He’d begun picking up radio broadcasts in his office over the past couple of weeks, and was more than aware that the real Army was on its way. He didn’t want to have to answer any awkward questions about why he was impersonating an officer.
As Dan was making preparations to leave, Hannah and Jess were also making their way home. They had decided to cut through the woods on the way back, where months previously they had gathered wood before the worst of the snow hit.
The woods had been protected from the worst of the snowdrifts by the trees, and in one or two places a few patches of bare ground were now exposed. In places, a few spring bulbs were beginning to emerge, filling Hannah with renewed hope for the future. Her hopes were shortly to be dashed, though, as she tripped over what she at first took for a log.
When she looked more closely, the grim realisation hit her that it was
actually the body of a dead girl. “Oh my God,” she uttered.
“What is it, Mummy?” asked Jess, who was just behind her.
“Stay back, babe,” replied Hannah. “It’s nothing.”
But it was too late. Jess had already seen the body. Hannah reached down and rolled the body over. It had been frozen solid in the snow for months, and was perfectly preserved. She instantly recognised the face.
“Lauren,” she cried. How cruel could life be? A few moments ago she had been feeling full of optimism about the future, and now she’d found this, a young life, taken away in its prime.
It was then that she noticed the gun, just a couple of feet away from the body. She examined the body more closely and found the wound to the head. It didn’t feel like a gunshot wound, though.
She may have been holed up in the cottage for the past five months, but she was still the D.I. of the town, and she was determined to find whoever had done this. She opened her bag and took out a towel and ever so gently wrapped the gun in it, taking care not to wipe off any fingerprints.
Jess began to cry. Hannah pulled her closer to her and hugged her for comfort. She felt a tear roll down her own cheek, dripping onto the face of the dead girl below. A few inches from Lauren’s face, the first snowdrop of spring was starting to flower. The circle of life was beginning again.
All over the country, other bodies were being discovered. Jack Taylor, the young lad whom Dan had thrown out of the camp, was one of them. The melting snow revealed many more along the roadsides where they’d fallen, their journeys never completed.
Others were found dead in their homes, many of the elderly, in particular, had succumbed to hypothermia.
With the restoration of electricity, television was up and running within a few weeks, beginning with just a news service. It was only then that the full death toll from the big freeze began to emerge. In the UK alone, it was estimated at over two million. Worldwide estimates ranged wildly, but figures of up to 70 million were being talked about.
Life was going to take a long time to return to normal. After the snow came the floods. The ground floors of millions of properties were inundated as the snow melted, running in great torrents through the streets, the drainage unable to cope.
One of the first things Hannah wanted to do on her return was to get into the tunnel to find out if there had been any evidence of Peter’s reappearance. The first time she went down there it was waist-deep in water.
Eventually, when the flood waters had subsided, she walked along to the exact spot where The Time Bubble was located and found an extremely damp note tucked into the wall.
She pulled it out. The flood water had made the end of it soggy, but the rest was intact. She turned it over to read it.
“P.G. 11/01/30 6.45am”
They were his initials, and the date he’d been due to come back. So at least she knew he had been here. She needed to speak to Josh. He would know the exact time of the next jump. Please let it not be in the middle of winter, she thought.
At least he was alive, and her worst fears that he would somehow have been trapped in the tunnel were unfounded. But now eleven long years stretched in front of her like a yawning chasm.
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Alice had spent the winter in the south of France with old friends of Josh’s. Future Josh had flown her due south to a hospital in Nantes where they had fixed up her ankle. He left her there with an address and instructions of how and where to find the safe haven he’d prepared for her on the French Riviera.
Forearmed with the knowledge of everything that had already occurred, he was able to tell her the precise date and time to travel. He’d also informed her that when he’d emerged again from The Time Bubble, she had been waiting for him.
And so it was that, on 8th July, Josh emerged back into the cave to find her waiting for him in the cave entrance. They ran towards each other and hugged in the centre of the cave. Such was her enthusiasm that she nearly knocked him over.
“Careful!” he said. “You nearly knocked me back into the Bubble then! How long has it been?”
“Eight and a half months,” she replied.
“Exactly the same as the other one,” said Josh. “That is extremely interesting.” He glanced down to her feet. “How’s the ankle?” he enquired.
“All fixed,” she said. “As good as new.”
“So, how did you know what time I’d be…?” he began to ask, then remembered everything Future Josh had said before. “Of course – he told you what time I’d be here.”
“Correct,” she said. “You’re getting the hang of it!”
“So, did he try anything on?” asked Josh.
“Hardly,” she said. “I was in severe pain from my ankle, I was hardly about to start performing sexual acrobatics, was I?”
They stepped out of the cave into blazing sunshine. Josh was suddenly aware that he was sweating profusely. He was standing in midsummer sun, still dressed from head to toe in his extreme cold weather gear.
“I think I’m going to have to lose a few layers, or I’ll pass out,” he said.
“I’ve brought you some clothes,” she said, producing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
“Wow,” he said, as he changed. “After all we went through I never thought I’d see myself wearing a pair of shorts again. So what’s been happening while I’ve been away?”
As they walked back up the coastal path, she filled him in on all the detail of what had occurred while he was in the Bubble. She also had the unpleasant task of breaking the news to him of the death of Lauren. She knew that they had once been lovers, and it set a sombre tone for the rest of the walk back to St Ives.
Chapter Twenty-Four – 30th March 2041 (6.45am)
The world had taken a long time to recover from the devastating havoc wreaked across it in the year following the asteroid strike.
It took two years for the atmosphere to return to normal. Although much of the polar ice did melt during the summer of 2030, it was by no means to the extent of what had been normal in the previous decade.
Most of the Northern Hemisphere faced another extremely cold winter, fortunately nothing like on the scale of the previous year.
This time, Britain was prepared, and, despite frequent heavy snowfalls from December through to March, the power stayed on and food supplies got through. The previous year had been a complete whitewash as far as farming and harvests were concerned, and now Britain’s agricultural industry had to start again from scratch.
In the meantime, the country imported most of its food from abroad. New Zealand and other southern countries had survived relatively intact, and when the shops began to open again, it was strawberries, lamb and other food from that country that formed the bulk of the nation’s diet.
Sorting out the mess took most of the summer, but by the end of the year some semblance of normal life had returned. Times were extremely hard and Britain was effectively bankrupted by the cost of putting everything right. Billions of pounds of damage had been done. Just like the Great Depression of the 1930s in America, the 2030s in the UK began in a similar way.
Despite the hard times, there was at least full employment for everyone. The loss of over a million adults of working age combined with the huge clear-up operation needed meant that there was work for all. It was low-paid work, but work nonetheless.
The British people were used to pulling together in times of crisis, and the shared goal of rebuilding their nation brought them together like never before. By the end of the 2030s, Britain was once again a happy and prosperous place.
Once the clear-up operation was underway, the task of tracking down criminals who had taken advantage of the crisis began. What Dan had done was small beer compared to some of the atrocities that had occurred in other parts of the country, and some very high-profile cases came to court.
Hannah kept her vow to track down Lauren’s killer, and Dan was one of her prime suspects. She soon knew all about his
little community in the Army base and had him hauled in for questioning as soon as things in the town were back under control.
But Dan was one step ahead of her. He’d been expecting this and took the opportunity to drop Ryan right in it. He told her all about Ryan’s obsession with guns, where he kept them, and how he had created them.
Although Lauren hadn’t died of a gunshot wound, he fabricated a tale where Ryan had led her at gunpoint into the woods to try and rape her, and how it had gone horribly wrong. He then said that Ryan had come back and confessed to him, full of remorse. Dan was telling all this to Hannah now in his duty as a citizen to protect law and order.
From there, it was a pretty straightforward task of matching up Ryan’s fingerprints to the gun they had, and searching his home where they found the blueprints for the guns, his collection of magazines, the 3D printer, and his box of weapons. They had all the evidence they needed.
Despite protesting his innocence all the way to the dock, Ryan was found guilty of Lauren’s murder and jailed for life.
Hannah wasn’t totally happy with the verdict. She felt all along that there was something not quite right about all of it, but once it had been passed on to the Crown Prosecution Service it was out of her hands.
As for Dan, there was very little she could charge him with. Frustratingly, most of the people she could find who’d been in the camp with Dan seemed to think he was some kind of hero. She had thoroughly disliked him ever since she’d first encountered him and she was sure he knew more about Lauren’s death than he was letting on.
Eventually he got a caution for breaking into the Army base and for looting, amounting to little more than a slap on the wrist. He’d effectively got away with it all scot-free.
But he was still to get his come-uppance. There had indeed been a face at the window that night when he’d killed Lauren, and it was that of Future Josh.